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A.E. Schweitzer (Vastera, Inc., Little Thompson Observatory (LTO)), T.T. Melsheimer (Meridian Controls, LTO)
The Little Thompson Observatory is believed to be the first of its kind, located next to a high school and accessible to other schools remotely over the Internet. This observatory is the second member of the Telescopes in Education (TIE) project. Construction was done completely by volunteer labor, and the observatory was built on the grounds of Berthoud High School in northern Colorado. During 2001, we averaged 400-500 visitors per month.
We are grateful to have received a STScI IDEAS grant to provide teacher training workshops for K-12 schools in northern Colorado to make use of the observatory, including remote observing from classrooms. Students connect to the observatory over the Internet, and then receive the images back on their local computers.
We are honored that a committee of teachers and administrators from the Thompson School district have selected these workshops to count towards Incentive Credits (movement on the salary schedule) because the course meets the criteria: "Learning must be directly transferable to the classroom with students and relate to standards, assessment and/or technology."
Also in the past year, our training materials have been shared with NASA Goddard and Howard University, which are working together to develop a similar teacher education program. Our next goal is to add solar observing capability!
Please visit our website at www.starkids.org.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.